


Night: Shadows from Five Billion Trees

by Amuly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Cuddling and Snuggling, First Time, Flirting, Hair, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:23:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every childhood is filled with magic – school of witchcraft and wizardry or no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night: Shadows from Five Billion Trees

1

The other boy was crying in his bed on the opposite side of the dormitory. Remus knew: he could hear soft sniffles floating over to him, carried through the darkness on wings of silence and seclusion. He shifted uncomfortably behind his own bed curtains, the big, wide bed seeming much too over-large for his small frame. He could live on this bed – like a whole house, it was so big. He was fairly certain his kitchen back home was smaller than the vast expanse of the bed.

He was cold. And lonely. Probably just like that other boy who was crying a few short steps away.

Coming to a decision, Remus slid off his mattress, bare toes wriggling and stretching outward until they met the floor, a long ways down. He pushed through his mass of curtains, peering around at the darkened room. The blonde boy – _Peter_ , Remus mouthed the name as he tried to commit it to memory – was snoring loudly in his bed next to the door. So it wasn't him. James – glasses and dark, wild hair – had his curtains thrown wide open, soft candlelight illuminating the drool slowly flowing from his mouth and onto his pillow. Not him, either.

That only left the pale, dark-haired boy, with features that might have been pointy if they weren't forced into a jovial smile and boisterous laugh as Sirius whooped and hollered with James at dinner that day. Remus had thought perhaps they knew each other before Hogwarts, with how easily they fell into being best mates, but when he heard them exchanging all sorts of “new friend” facts – birthdays, favorite colors, which Famous Wizards and Witches cards they had and which they needed – he figured they were new to each other, just like everyone else.

So it was Sirius who was crying, then. Stopping outside the other boy's curtains, Remus shifted where he stood, rolling his weight from the outer edges of his feet to the inner edges before repeating the process all over again. Finally his fears of being impolite and how harshly the other boy might reprimand him were outweighed by the pathetic sound of lonely, scared sniffles. Remus reached out hesitant fingertips and touched the curtain.

“Excuse me? Sirius?”

The sniffing abruptly stopped, followed by a long, awkward moment of silence. Then: “Go away!”

For a moment Remus' politeness almost overrode his need to help out this other boy. But then he looked back at his big, lonely bed, and turned back to Sirius' curtains with renewed determination. “I'm scared,” he whispered at the closed curtain. “Can I come in?”

Another long moment of silence. Then the curtain fluttered open just an inch, revealing a red-faced and damp-eyed Sirius peering up at Remus from the emptiness of his big bed. “You're just trying to help me.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Remus pushed through the curtains and sat down next to Sirius on his bed. Immediately he felt embarrassed at his boldness, and proceeded to stare down at his hands as they fiddled with the duvet. He shrugged one shoulder as he realized Sirius was waiting for a reply. “Wasn't sleeping, either. Bed's too big.” He chanced a glance up at Sirius, who was staring at him curiously. “Wanna know a trick?”

Sirius cocked his head. “Trick for what?”

“Here.” Remus wasn't sure why the impulse overcame him, or, even more shockingly, why he felt brave enough to act on it. But he acted without thinking too hard about it, shifting their positions around on the bed until Remus was sitting up against the pillows and Sirius was tucked between his legs. Remus draped his arms around Sirius' front, resting his chin on Sirius' shoulder. “Mum used to do this for me. When I was scared at night.”

“Oh.” Sirius fell quiet, stiff in Remus' arms. Remus waited, just resting his front against Sirius' back. Sure enough, a few minutes later Sirius relaxed into him, warm body pressing loose against Remus'. His hand came up to grip Remus', where it lay across Sirius' lap. “Everyone's mad at me. For being in Gryffindor. But I didn't want to be in Slytherin.”

Remus stroked Sirius' wrist, considering this confession carefully before he replied. “Dungeons are pretty cold. It's probably for the best you're here.”

The reply was apparently nonsensical enough that Sirius didn't have an answer to it, and he fell silent for a long moment. Then: “Is this magic?”

“Huh?”

Sirius was still in Remus' arms, relaxed. The tension when he had first pulled Sirius to him was almost completely drained away, through the bed and into the floor like heat leeched away in the dead of winter. “What you're doing. What your mum used to do. Is it magic? Like, mum-magic?”

Remus laughed, shaking his head. “I don't think so.”

“Feels like magic,” Sirius whispered. His breathing started to slow; his body sunk into Remus'. Remus didn't return to his bed until he woke up the next morning, nose buried in Sirius' short black hair.

2

“We need to go on a' _adventure_ ,” Sirius moaned wistfully.

Remus laughed, shifting _The_ _Dawn_ _Treader_ in his grip as Sirius squirmed against his front. He struggled to keep the pages steady as he read, even through Sirius fumbling at the pages in his enthusiasm.

Remus pressed his lips to the back of Sirius' ear as he spoke. It wasn't a kiss – not really. It was just where his lips went whenever he read to Sirius nestled in his lap. “Why'd'you want to go an adventure when you've got Hogwarts here?”

Sirius scoffed. “But Hogwarts has _homework_. And _exams_. I want to go on a' adventure with Peter and Susan and Lucy and Edmund, slaying evil things and killing the White Witch and protecting Narnia. I mean, look at all the mad things Lucy and Edmund get to see in this one!” Again, Remus almost lost his place as Sirius grabbed at the book. He avoided it by gently tugging the book out of Sirius' immediate reach, up and out in front.

“The world you live in has loads more mad things than muggles know about,” Remus pointed out. “Dragons and centaurs and stuff.”

“Pfft.” Sirius blew a raspberry at the notion. His spit ended up landing on Remus' leg. Remus dutifully ignored this. “But none of them are _Mr_. _Tumnus_. And you're still forgetting: _homework_.” Turning halfway in Remus' arms, Sirius glanced sidelong into Remus' eyes. “Don't you want to save the world? Don't you want to defeat evil and be...” Sirius trailed off, gaze unfocused and drifting to some place on the far wall of the dormitory. “Don't you want to be a hero?”

Remus shrugged one shoulder, blushing as snakes squirmed in his stomach. “I don't ever want something so evil to happen that I'd have to fight it.”

“Right.” Sirius glanced back down at the book, chewing his lower lip. “Right. 'Course.”

Without any further comment, Remus brought the book back into Sirius' lap and his chin on Sirius' shoulder. He kept reading: _“Across the gray hillside above them – gray, for the heather was not yet in bloom – without noise, and without looking at them, and shining as if he were in bright sunlight though the sun had in fact gone in, passed with slow pace the hugest lion that human eyes have ever seen...”_

3

_“I've got a statistic for you right now. Grab your pencil, Doug. There are five billion trees in the world. I looked it up. Under every tree is a shadow, right? So, then, what makes night? I'll tell you: shadows crawling out from under five billion trees! Think of it! Shadows running around in the air, muddying the waters, you might say.”_

“That's bonkers.”

Remus held onto the book tightly where it was resting in Sirius' lap. “Why?” Remus asked. Even though his head was swimming with the thoughts _Why not? It's magical. It's fantastic. It's brilliant._

Sirius squirmed in Remus' lap, changing his body language so that he was facing him without facing him. “Because it's not true, is it? It's the Earth spinning around in space.”

When Sirius leaned his head back onto Remus' shoulder, big grey eyes looking upside-down at him, Remus found the courage within himself to say what he had been keeping silent. “But this way, night's more magical.”

Sirius' hand had been resting loosely on Remus' thigh as he read. Now, Sirius squeezed it, thumb rubbing light patterns in the corduroy of his trousers when he released. “I think space is more magic than trees,” he mused. “All that bigness, all around us. It's a place we haven't explored yet! Well,” Sirius lifted his head, staring forward again, though Remus caught the quick frown the passed over his features before he did, “the muggles did. A bit. But only a tiny, tiny bit! There's loads more we've never seen, that _no one_ has ever seen! That's the place to have an adventure, now.”

Remus' stomach fluttered from the warmth of Sirius' hand on his thigh, from the movement of Sirius' body in his lap. He swallowed down the feelings and thought about what Sirius had said. “It's so cold,” he mused. “And empty.” He folded the book in one hand, thumb saving his place, as he brought the other hand up to stroke at Sirius' hair. Ever since Sirius had figured out he was going to be a dog when he finally managed the animagus transformation, he had consented to being pet like one. Remus tried not to take advantage too often, but at times like these – times when Sirius' eyes were bright with adventure, when he let his wildness bubble up within him and it caused a fear borne of loneliness to clench at Remus' heart – Remus let himself indulge, just a little.

“'s not empty,” Sirius countered. “You're just looking at it wrong.” He squirmed in Remus' lap again, letting his head fall back on Remus' shoulder. “You know how they're always going on about how the bigness of space makes us all tiny, insignificant?”

“Who's 'they'?”

Remus received a swot to his leg for that, and it made him grin at Sirius, who returned the expression with eyes and lips. “ _They_ , Remus. _They_ say we should feel like we're just a speck. But it doesn't make me feel that way.” Sirius' eyes glittered as they stared past Remus' face and up at his bed curtains. Remus knew he wasn't staring at his bed curtains, though: Sirius was staring up, up, past Hogwarts, and Britain, and the Earth. All the way up. “It makes me feel big. Vast. Like a giant. We're standing on this rock, but we – the muggles, at least, and I'm sure we could manage it if we felt like it – have made it off! They went to the moon, walked around on it, like some kind of Greek legend or something. They're like... Titans! Stomping around on other worlds, marking it for their own. And we'll be up there too, one day. And we'll go further, and our kids'll go further than that, and the universe'll just become another ocean for us to explore, another continent, a New World.”

Remus' hand was trembling as he stroked Sirius' head, fingers running through the shaggy black locks, heart breaking as the silken hair slipped through his fingers. “I don't know if I'd want to go,” he whispered.

“You'd go if I did.” Sirius' voice didn't hold the hint of a question in it. And some deep part of Remus knew that it was right not to.

“Come on,” Remus said. “After this we can read _Martian_ _Chronicles_.”

Sirius' eyes darted back to Remus' face, away from his mental contemplation of space. “What's that?”

“Another one by Ray Bradbury,” Remus said. “Except it's sci-fi. It's all about stories from the first missions to Mars.”

Sirius pressed his back flush with Remus' chest as he settled in to continue listening. “Let's read that next,” he breathed.

_“If only we could figure a way to keep those darn five billion shadows under those trees, we could stay up half the night, Doug, because there'd be no night!”_

4

In unison, the boys whispered: “ _Tenete_.”

Quiet. Stillness. Then... The map came to life. The ink drained from its pages as it folded itself up, and across its front new words were written by an invisible hand: _Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are proud to present: The Marauders Map._

“ _Brilliant_ ,” Sirius breathed.

Sitting behind Sirius, Remus had to agree. His heart pounded at the sight of the map in Sirius' hands: working, completed, three years of tireless research condensed into one, absolutely amazing document. It was just like Sirius had said: _brilliant_.

“We have to show James,” Remus said. As much as he wanted to sit here, safe in the bubble of his own bed and Sirius in the space between his legs, Remus knew this was the product of all of their magic, and that James and Peter deserved to know it was completed.

“James is in detention,” Sirius scoffed. “And Pete doesn't need to know yet. Just... hang on.” Sirius fell silent, neck bent as he stared down at the map. Finally, after a long – especially for Sirius – moment of silent contemplation, he turned his head to glance behind him at Remus. “We made this.”

A surge of emotions overwhelmed Remus, so much so that he had to bury his face in Sirius' neck. He smiled. And smiled and smiled. Finally, mouth pressed firmly in Sirius' hair and the back of his neck, he mumbled: “It's our own magic.”

“It's our own adventure.”

Remus felt cold at that – fearful. But then Sirius turned around and smiled at him, and the fear shunted itself off to some small corner of his heart.

5

The rickety bed in the Shrieking Shack was practically screaming from the combined weight of boy and dog, but Remus ignored it. His body shivered, naked flesh cold as it was exposed to the winter air. But a little chill was nothing compared to the ache in his bones that was increasing, growing stronger as the moon began its wretched ascent. He buried his face further in Padfoot's hair.

Between his legs, Padfoot sat dutifully, waiting for the boy to change into his wolf-partner so they could run around and play. Sometimes Remus felt resentful of the other boys' ability to change into animals at will, to have fun on nights that were nothing but pain and suffering and fear for Remus. But not right now. Right now, Remus just felt grateful.

Remus buried his face in the scruff of Padfoot's neck, shaggy black hair tickling his nose. He breathed deep, trying to stop his racing heart. It was better, _so_ much better, with Sirius here. And James and Pete, of course. But it still wasn't good. It could never be good. But Padfoot dragged the night out from being hell and into somewhere just a bit more bearable. Like the dentist's. Or potions class. Horrible, wretched, but not the hell he was used to.

Moon had risen. Remus could feel it stretch and pull and crush at his bones. He cried out, struggling against it. He struggled against it every time, even though giving in might make it easier. It was instinctual, the struggle. He couldn't just give himself over to torture, no matter how much easier it might make it. His hands tightened in Padfoot's fur, his arms rippling with the change as he fought against it.

Beneath him, Padfoot whimpered. Another cry ripped its way from Remus' throat, tears pricking at his eyes. He shuddered, shaking, writhing, but stayed firmly attached to Padfoot's back.

Then Padfoot shifted, moved, turned around. His big, flat dog-tongue scraped across Remus' face, while the whine continued low in his doggy throat. Remus sobbed one more time, but Padfoot kept licking at him. And Remus' felt himself relax like magic, felt himself fall into Sirius. And the change took him.

6

When Sirius entered their room that night, he headed straight for his own bed, not even chancing a glance in Remus' direction. It was the same the night before, and the night before that. It had been like this ever since... well. Remus' trembled and clutched at himself. Ever since the “Prank”.

“Sirius.” Remus' whisper was loud in the quiet stillness of the dark room. It was late – past even the witching hour. James and Peter had long since gone to sleep. Sirius would have holed himself up in the common room or somewhere similar, doing his best to stay out until he was sure Remus had gone to bed. Just like all the other nights. And Remus was tired of it. Tired of being a part of a fight he never even started. Tired of watching Sirius punish himself. Most of all, he was tired of missing Sirius, so badly that it felt like a physical pain. He just wanted Sirius to cuddle up with him again, as Remus did his homework, as he read aloud to Sirius, as they planned another prank together.

Sirius' quiet footsteps to his bed faltered for just a second at the sound of Remus' call. A moment later they continued on, as if Remus never spoke. “Sirius, please.” Still Sirius' footsteps headed inexorably for his own bed. Remus' throat felt like it was closing up, his eyes turning hot. A choked-off cry escaped him as he spoke again. “ _Please_.”

Remus' pain must have been evident in his voice, because in an instant Sirius was at his side, hands reaching for Remus in an aborted attempt at comfort. He stopped, hands dangling uselessly at his thighs as he waited in the darkness. “I-”

“Shut up, Padfoot,” Remus sighed. Then he pulled Sirius into his lap and held him there, arms circled tight around Sirius so he couldn't get away.

For the first few minutes Sirius' body was tense in Remus' embrace. But then slowly, slowly, he started to relax. As he did, the tears came.

Sirius tried again to speak, to force some words out between the quiet sobs and sniffles, but Remus wouldn't let him. He just held Sirius, making soothing shushing noises every time something like words threatened to form on his lips. His hands stroked down Sirius' sides, rubbing his arms, his chest, his thighs: anywhere Remus could reach, anywhere he thought his touch might provide comfort. Eventually the tears stopped, and Sirius was left sitting limp and exhausted in Remus' lap.

“It's okay,” Remus whispered, lips pressed to Sirius' ear and eyes closed. “It's okay. I know. I just want you here, Padfoot. Okay? Just... just right here.”

“Okay.” The single whispered word was so _broken_ , so sorrowful coming from Sirius' mouth, that Remus just squeezed him tighter to his chest, rubbed his cheek against Sirius' hair and jaw.

They stayed like that for a while, quiet breaths rising and falling in tandem with one another. Remus started to drift off, the exhaustion from the past weeks of worrying over Sirius finally catching up to him. His eyelids grew heavy even as his heart lightened, and his head nodded forward into Sirius' shoulder. It was just as his chin was scraping against Sirius' collarbone that Sirius spoke.

“Read to me? Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Sirius' head tipped back, his lips grazing Remus' temple. In his exhausted state, Remus pressed his lips against Sirius' skin, kissing away the sorrow and fear-sweat he could taste there, stale after days and weeks of self-flagellation and worry. “Yeah, Sirius.”

7

Sirius rocked in Remus' lap, eyes shut and neck pulled taut in a long, smooth line as his head hung back. Remus' own eyes were fluttering, but he couldn't close them, not even to focus on his own pleasure: he had to see Sirius, to watch Sirius. He had to drink in every nuance of Sirius' expressions and movements in front of him.

“Sirius,” Remus whispered, voice nearly broken. “Sirius, please.”

Sirius' eyes opened immediately, head tilting down so he could look at Remus as their bodies continued to move together. “Close?”

Remus shook his head even though, yes, he was close, of course he was, how could he _not_ be? He tilted his head up, mouth open, and Sirius got the idea. Their lips met in a sloppy kiss, breaths panting over each other's faces like stormy cloud bursts. Sirius' hips rolled down onto Remus' particularly forcefully, and Remus had to drop his head. He buried it in Sirius' neck, mouth drooling over the salty skin there as his fingers tightened painfully on Sirius' hips.

“I have to-” he groaned, feeling the pleasure building to a crescendo in his groin. Sirius' hands skittered over his back, neck, hair, fingers tapping out an affirmative rhythm of _yes, yes, yes_.

When Remus came he let the feeling envelop him, the pleasure lighting up his nerves and mind like a fireplace in the dead of winter or a sunrise at the height of summer. He could feel Sirius jerking himself to conclusion, and Remus basked in the sensation of Sirius around him, of the warmth and comfort Sirius' body gave off as it surrounded him.

As they came down Sirius only shifted enough so Remus could slip out of him, then settled immediately back into Remus' lap. Remus nuzzled at Sirius' neck and chest, kissing and nipping softly, as Sirius returned the affection with his hands slipping and stroking over Remus' back. The heat from their bodies bled into each other, mingling and combining like storm systems over an open plane. Remus shivered as the cool night air started to remind him of its presence on his sweat-slicked skin, and tugged Sirius closer. When Sirius felt the movement he laughed and started to shift on Remus' lap.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Get you under the covers, skin and bones.”

Remus rolled his eyes but let himself be wrapped up tight. Their heads rested on Remus' pillows, facing each other in equal wide-eyed adoration. “I love you,” Remus stumbled out. He flushed immediately as Sirius' jaw went slack in shock. “You- You don't have to-”

But then Sirius was scooping him up, tugging Remus into him as he nuzzled nose and lips against Remus' ear. “I love you, Remus. I love you too. 'Course I do. How could I not?”

Remus huffed in an attempt to ignore the tears pricking at his eyes. “So I guess it was good, then?”

Sirius' lips tugged at Remus' ear, gnawing a gentle path down from the top to the lobe. “ _Magical_ ,” he teased. Remus groaned and rolled his eyes, until Sirius let his head drop an inch and nipped at a point just at the top of Remus' jaw. Then Remus' eyes were closing, skin prickling at the sensation.

“You should go to sleep,” Sirius murmured. “Graduation tomorrow.”

“Are you saying I need beauty sleep?” Remus teased, even though he could feel himself starting to drift off already, wrapped up tight under the duvet and in Sirius' arms.

Sirius' voice was hardly a whisper as it floated over Remus' ear. “No,” it replied, “but I know how upset you'd be if we missed it. Our big introduction to adulthood, and all that.”

“You'll never,” a yawn cracked Remus' sentence in half, “be an adult.”

Remus could hear what Sirius said next, but it sounded something like “'nd you ... always were.” But he was already falling asleep, cuddled up to Sirius, their bodies still not cooled from their lovemaking. Just before he fell asleep, a thought skittered across Remus' mind that he might have tamped down were he more awake. But as it was, it managed to settle over his brain like a down-filled duvet: _Magical_.

  
  
  



End file.
